The Raven - A Witcher's Tale
by J. Moonwood
Summary: Story of a witcher named Malborn, of the School of the Hawk, who is forced to make difficult choices even though he is a simple monster slayer, and must constantly tangle with destiny despite his desire to be a neutral factor in the world. But destiny holds him in far grander designs. All characters and places belong to Andrzej Sapkowski.


The Raven

He was a witcher, trained in the school of the Hawk. Deadly and efficient, he could slay his foes from afar without them ever knowing it, and usually he stuck to this method, but make no mistake, he was just as deadly up close, his deadly blades were nicknamed Death and Fate. He cared not for the petty squabbles of nations, always hated politics he did. Nor did he have much cause to take sides in civil disputes, and it tended to disgust him to watch serfs fighting over dirt or some such trifling matter from which blood all too often was drawn.

His name was Malborn of Velhad.

His story was the same as all witchers. He had been taken as a child by a senior witcher who saw opportunity to bolster his school with new recruits. Torture and training had gone hand in hand for him; while painful mutagens were introduced to his young and still developing body, he would be forced to master the pain of his augmentations during routine living. Simply trying just to stand up straight sometimes was excruciating, and for the longest time, it was all Malborn could do just to keep from vomiting any time he tried to rise from a chair or bend over to pick something up.

Like most witcher initiates, Malborn was among few recruits who survived the mutagen augmentations and integrations, and so from a young age he had become calloused to watching friends die. He had learned to put up walls against the world, becoming disinterested in everyday problems amongst commoners as well as bitter towards those who spoke out openly against witchers, claiming them to be abominations or any of the other plebian falsities they managed to come up with.

Growing up in the School of the Hawk, Malborn was taught the importance of speed over strength in winning a fight. That acting before your opponent kept you on the offensive and so left little opportunity for your opponent to respond, for that first strike was trained to be lethal to the point that there would be no retaliation. Striking from afar with bows, crossbows, daggers, bombs, all of these tools Malborn was trained with to deadly efficiency. And when the need arose, he was well versed in close combat, and able to use swords, axes, polearms, daggers, fists and whatever else he could get his hands on to kill his opponent as if it were as natural as breathing.

But all of this training and growing up a student of the School of the Hawk was where his story's commonality ended. The school he had been taken to was located along the Dragon Mountains in northern Velhad, the oldest and central location of the School of the Hawk. The witchers there lived in a castle called Aedd Blein nestled amongst the higher slopes of the mountains. Overlooking the verdant plains of Velhad below, the castle had been nicknamed "Hawk's Roost" by witchers of other schools and by most of the common folk of the country when the school first settled in, so the name stuck.

Malborn had learned to be close friends with the few students who managed to make it to adulthood with him, and even then, they were less than a handful of men. No more than a dozen witchers resided in the Hawk's Roost by the time Malborn was in his twenties, so indeed they were as much a family as any. He wasn't bitter about his life as a witcher, nor was he excited or zealous of it, he had simply accepted life as it was and his place in the world seemed as normal to him as any farmer or king.

Over the years he had spent hours sifting through the abandoned parts of Aedd Blein, exploring long forgotten passages and traversing collapsing wings. The keep was a marvelous construction perched on a granite overhang high above the plains below, with high towers and stout buttresses the castle was considered nothing short of a marvel. More than half the keep rested on the overhang, which under common circumstances shouldn't have supported the weight and broken off to send the stones plummeting half a league down to the ground below. But this keep was special. As Malborn strode along the wall overlooking the base of the mountains, he recalled the story of the founding of his order, and the hero Theigred, who was their patron. Centuries ago, Theigred, had aided the dwarven kingdom which had been the ruling power in Velhad in that time.

The dwarven king had ordered a mine dug into the Dragon Mountains and foolishly suffered the consequences of awakening a herd of slumbering dragons entombed deep within the mountains. Hearing this, Theigred went to the dwarven king, offering his services despite the fact that witchers deigned not to consider dragons amongst their usual bestiary, for the dragons were wreaking havoc over all of Velhad, and threatened to spread into the surrounding kingdoms. The king graciously accepted, promising the witcher any reward he asked. Theigred explained that he needed a place to teach others his skill and to pass on his knowledge to the next generation to ensure witchers would thrive in the northern regions, for he was already considered an old man at this time.

The dwarf monarch promised him a keep that would be memorable to the ages and with that, Theigred accepted and set out to rid Velhad of the dragon infestation. The dwarves outfitted him with flame-retarded armor, both light and flexible, yet hard enough to repel a dragon's bite or claw, and they also forged for him a folded silver blade, one that would sharpen rather than dull as it saw use. With these tools, Theigred vanquished well over a score of dragons that had terrorized keeps, towns, and wilderness alike, hunting them all down and slaying them in combat.

He was famed for his marksmanship, and had a longbow taller than his body, which he had to rest on the ground just to draw. The arrows were ballista bolts that had been refletched and fitted with lighter heads so as to improve the range of their flight. All but one of the dragons he slew in this way, save for the last. The final dragon had retreated to its tomb by the time Theigred hunted it down. It was the oldest, and largest of the herd, and was a big as a castle. Wandering into the abandoned mine which lead to the dragon's haven, Theigred knew his bow would be of no use in such cramped tunnels as the dwarves dug, there simply was no maneuverability and a witcher who can't dodge is a dead witcher. But in he went anyway, drawing his silver sword, the gift from his dwarven friends, and went to face the dragon.

Upon entering the larger chamber where the great beast waited, Theigred was confronted by the dragon. Snarling into his face, the dragon vented his hate on the witcher, calling him kinslayer, and asking if he had come to try and finish the job. Theigred looked over the great dragon, seeing how large he was; the great beast's head was more than three times the size of the witcher's whole body. The witcher scoffed and asked if it seemed at all possible that a simple silver sword could destroy such a monolithic monstrosity, the dragon snorted a no in reply. The dragon told the monster slayer that his name was Aethelynzaxinostorinae, and Theigred gave his name in return.

The two conversed about the impending outcome of their meeting and the details of various scenarios that Theigred proposed, most of which would end in the witcher's death. He spoke casually, calm and collected, never losing his nerve while staring down the epic Aethelyn, as he had taken to calling him, and the dragon noticed and admired this. The dragon soon found out why, for when asked about his confidence, Theigred informed him of how many explosives he had set up on his way in, and how many were on his person even then. Aethelyn scoffed at this, knowing too well that the small explosives wouldn't be enough to harm him. Theigred only replied with a smile and a finger held towards the ceiling. Huge fault-lines spider webbed their way across the roof of the massive cavern they were in, originally produced when the dwarves had employed gnomish explosives to deepen the mine quicker. The dragon's eyes grew wide at this and then narrowed again to focus on the small grenade held in the witcher's hand. Theigred explained the bombs were called Dancing Star, and that they held enough volatility to collapse the mine shafts leading to the cavern as well as destroy the already precarious structural integrity of the cavern ceiling.

The dragon begrudgingly made a deal with the witcher, if he would allow him to leave the cavern, he would fly to the north beyond the Dragon Mountains and leave Velhad and the northern kingdoms unbothered. Theigred agreed to this and warned the dragon that if ever it returned, cunning, not might, would be its downfall. Chewing on that piece of wisdom, Aethelynzaxinostorinae departed and the witcher watched as the dragon left the mines and disappeared over the mountain ranges far to the north.

When he returned to the dwarven king, he received a hero's welcome, and the dwarves celebrated their victory for a full month, having Theigred regale them with the tales of how he slew all the dragons he had, and the stories were so much more convincing and ominous considering he had brought with him the teeth of twenty dragons as proof. After the festivities had ended, the dwarven king commissioned his best artisans to start drawing up the plans for a castle that could hang over a mountain without falling, and thus led to the construction of Aedd Blein, with the dwarves utilizing the magic of their stone working to make the logical anomaly possible. Theigred went on to found the School of the Hawk in this keep, and trained the witchers of his school ever to know the value of striking down their foes from afar.

Musing on the tale of "The Teeth of Twenty Dragons," Malborn cradled his chin in his palm as he rested an elbow on the crenellation of the walls whilst staring out into the sunset. A call shook him from his thoughts as he looked to see another witcher running across the wall to him. Beremin was one of the witchers that had been brought to Aedd Blein about the same time as him, and he waved a hand in greeting. Trotting to a stop, Beremin returned the wave and spoke, "Malborn, Dombrey wants to see you, says it's important."

Looking back out into the sunset Malborn inquired, "Any idea what he wants?"

"Something about sending you on a mission," Beremin replied.

After giving a "hmm" in response, Malborn made his way back into the tower he had seen Beremin come out of and took the stairs down to the courtyard, then ventured over to the main hall where Dombrey's quarters were, wondering what sort of mission his master could possibly need to send him away on.

Upon entering the main part of the keep, the aroma of sizzling meat appeased his nostrils and he noted most of the other witchers had gathered at the long table near the kitchen to share the evening meal. Waving to the friendly faces, Malborn passed them by and entered the circular stairwell at the back of the main hall. Climbing three stories, he entered the "royal chambers" which had originally been constructed to accommodate kings and queens. The dwarves must've thought very highly indeed of Theigred to have constructed the castle with such comforts in mind.

Knocking on the door to Dombrey's study, Malborn entered after he was bidden, and looked to his master sitting behind his desk covered in maps and scrolls, a book here and there, and an empty mug with a vodka bottle beside it.

"You summoned me Dombrey?" He stood still but in a relaxed pose, they were a family, not military.

"Ah Malborn, yes yes," the aging man ushered him closer with a beckoning hand. Rising from his seat, the master of the School of the Hawk shuffled around his desk and came to embrace Malborn in a hearty handshake. "Good that you're here, I've got something important I need you to take care of."

Returning the embrace caringly, "Of course master, what needs doing?"

Dombrey shot him a scheming look as he turned to venture back around his desk and find his seat. "Come here and have a look at thi-" his words were cut off as the entire room shook violently. Both witchers were knocked off their feet from the quake and fell on the stone floor hard, Malborn's vision swam as he saw the roof of Dombrey's room break apart and heave away from the walls out into the twilight, soon replaced by the biggest dragon head he had ever seen snarling at him and growling,

"Lying witchers! Where is it?" Malborn tried to stand but the darkness overtook him and he knew no more.


End file.
